Flynn: 'Scrubs was a huge accomplishment'

Flynn, who played the Janitor in the series, explained that he never expected it to last so long.

"You could say it slowed down and stopped - the wheels just stopped turning," he told TV Squad. "But no matter how you look at it, it was on the air for eight and a half years, and that is a huge accomplishment.

"I was happy the whole time. It's hard enough to get a pilot shot, let alone stay on the air for eight years. I can't help but see anything but a silver lining. It's all a silver lining."

Flynn also defended the decision to renew the show for a ninth season after wrapping up the storylines in the eighth finale.

"We shot it as a season finale," he admitted. "Everybody went their separate ways, except suddenly they tried to get people back to start again. And it's not because people were afraid to move on or thought the show was better than ever or anything like that. Primarily it was because a lot of people's income was derived from the show being on the air.

"And it's a credit to Bill Lawrence, the show's creator, as a person, that even though he could have walked away long before that, he stuck around and kept guiding the show and kept it on the air partly because it meant a pay cheque for a couple hundred people."

Flynn added that everyone expected the program to be canceled after the ninth run, saying: "I don't think anyone was shocked when it was time to go. There was nothing sad about it. It lived far beyond any reasonable expectations... By the time it got to season eight and nine, it was far too late to feel bad about anything. It had been a great success. Victory was already signed, sealed and delivered. The rest was just icing on the cake."